


leaving our dreams behind

by dilkirani



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Happy Ending, discussions of imaginary Jemma, if fitzsimmons had gotten together before Maveth and "maybe there is", season 2 canon divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 18:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10541946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dilkirani/pseuds/dilkirani
Summary: Tumblr prompt: "things you said that made me feel real"When Fitz wakes up from a night spent with Simmons, he thinks it was a hallucination after all. Or, when reality's so much better than any fantasy.





	

“You’re not  _here_ ,” he whispers to himself and then shuts his eyes, knowing when he opens them she’ll be gone. This has never happened before—he’d never  _allowed_  it to happen before. Mostly because it seems disrespectful to her, to force her into a relationship she’s never wanted, even if it all exists within his imagination. But partly because he knew crossing this line would turn her from a supportive crutch into a weighted stone around his neck.

Imagining her eyes shining with affection and longing and…love? Love. Imagining the feel of her in his arms, in his bed. All it will do, in the end, is drag his body back down to the ocean floor where his soul has dwelled for a lifetime.

“What?” she asks, voice tight and small, and his eyes flicker open to find her still here, sheet tucked around her, makeup smeared, hair mussed beyond recognition. He’s never seen her like this before and she’s beautiful.

“I-I uh…nothing,” he says, turning away from her because staring at her too long is like staring into the sun.

So, does this mean he is living in a universe in which Jemma Simmons barged her way into his room, told him “ _enough_ , Fitz,” and then kissed the words right out of his mouth?

And if that’s all true, how is it possible that she’s still here, drawing on his body heat? Why didn’t she escape in the middle of the night when she had the chance?

“Fitz,” she says softly and rests a hand on his chest, right over his thudding heart. He should be embarrassed. He  _is_  embarrassed, but it’s far enough down on his list of emotions that it barely registers.

“Are you okay?” she asks, when he doesn’t respond. Tears catch at the corners of his eyes and now he’s properly mortified. He can’t answer her. What could he possibly say? He’s not brain damaged enough to believe this is anything but physical comfort for Jemma, still reeling from betrayals and deaths and her own trauma.

And it’s not that he minds, truly. He’d given her his last, most important breath—what is one night of making her body thrum with pleasure? But why couldn’t she have just left? Why did she have to stay and program his brain to think waking up next to her was normal?

She loves him, in a way, but  _this_ , the hands and the mouths and the aching of a want finally sated, this is not real. She’s not real. Maybe, after everything, he’s not either.

“Oh, Fitz, I’m so sorry,” she sighs, and her breath warms the side of his neck in a way that makes his whole world shatter.

“It’s okay,” he says, and he thinks these might be the first words he ever spoke, as if his sole reason for existing is to reassure her. “It’s okay, I underst-I uh, I get it.”

“No,” she says sadly, “I don’t think you do.”

She leans her head against his shoulder, burrowing into his side. He can feel her cool skin against his and his entire body tenses. So that part, at least, hadn’t been a desperate fiction. There’s no way his brain could conjure up precisely how she feels fitted against him with no barriers remaining.

“I’m sorry for…springing this all on you. I’m just so tired of wasting time. And I’m not…so great with expressing myself either, you know. I thought I could just show you.”

Her echo of his own words causes something to catch in his lungs and he struggles to remember that this time he has all the oxygen he needs.

Jemma slides her hand down from his heart until she can grasp his hand, and she holds on tight. “Talk to me.  _Please_.”

“I can’t do this,” he says, finally turning to look at her. This act might be the most courageous he’s ever been. “I can’t pretend that…I mean, I’m happy to make you feel better. I’m happy that we’re friends again. But I can’t pretend that this is just…” He tries to pull his hand away, but she’s strong and won’t let him.

“Just what, Fitz?” and she’s looking at him like she truly doesn’t know and he can’t understand it.

“I’m in  _love_  with you,” he finally chokes, the words falling from his mouth like bullets and he hates that because his love for Jemma is not a warzone. Despite the hurt that clawed at his limbs when she returned, despite the lies between them, his love for her has only ever been a carefully tended, wildly overgrown garden. He loves all of it—the wildflowers sprouting up where no one has planted them, the crisp apples and inexplicable tropical fruits, sweet mango juice trailing down his chin, the weeds that refuse to be killed, the roses he yearns to touch without cutting himself to pieces.

He wishes he could show her.

Jemma tilts his face towards her and stares at him so intently he feels himself flush. “Good,” she replies. “Because I’m in love with you. I was kind of buying into the whole ‘show don’t tell’ thing but perhaps that was a mistake.”

“Was it a mistake?” he whispers, ignoring for now the fact that she said she was in love with him, because he’s not entirely sure it is a fact.

“No,” she answers, smiling and kissing him gently against his temple. She’s treating him like he’s going to break, but for once he doesn’t mind because he thinks he might after all.

“What did you mean, earlier? You said, ‘you’re not here.’” She’s biting her lip in concern and he’s waiting for the downfall.

“Jemma,” he starts, but he can’t finish. He can’t unstick the words from the back of his throat.

She pulls at him until he’s on his side facing her and draws the blanket up over their heads. He can barely make out her eyes in the sudden darkness.

“There,” she whispers. “Now you’re safe. What did you mean?”

He doesn’t want to tell her. He doesn’t want to say it, but if he doesn’t now he never will. “When you were at…um, when you were gone, I would—sometimes I would talk to you.”

She nods, like it’s to be expected. “Me too, actually. When I was alone at my apartment, it was so quiet I started talking to myself. But I missed you so much, it just turned into me talking to you.”

Her confession soothes him in a way, but it’s not what he meant and now, after everything, he can’t let himself take the easy way out.

“It’s not the same,” he says, closing his eyes and finding his other senses overwhelmed with her completely, like diving into a pool. “You talked back.”

“Oh,” she breathes.

“Yeah."

But she doesn’t move away from him; she doesn’t even flinch. Her lack of response makes him nervous, so he stumbles forward.

“It’s why…this, what if it’s not real? I mean, we never—please don’t think—you, I mean  _she_ , just talked to me. Helped me work through things, that’s it, but even so…”

“And how do we prove it’s real?” she asks, like she genuinely wants to know the answer.

“What?”

“You know, I always thought Mulder and Scully should have come up with a secret code, what with all the times they encountered aliens who could take the form of anyone. But I suppose that wouldn’t help in this situation because your hallucination of me would know the code anyway.” She’s rambling and it tugs a smile from his lips involuntarily.

“Jemma—”

“I love you,” she cuts him off. “Did she ever say that?”

“No,” he admits.

“Well, she should have.” She pauses, drawing a finger along his brow, down his cheek to scratch at his stubble. “I should have.”

She’s never said it, and now she’s said it twice. Now she’s saying it like a dam has finally burst and she’s powerless to stop the flood.

Drowning, he thinks, is a miracle.

“I didn’t know,” she tells him. “I didn’t understand what I felt. I’d never thought of you that way before, and then you said  _that_  and the water was rushing in and then you were just…lying there—” Jemma breaks off and looks away, and it’s in this moment that he truly understands what he has put her through. 

“I need you to understand that I wasn’t trying to hurt you, but I was making you  _worse_  and…” She falters then, and he finds himself leaning forward and placing a gentle kiss against her lips.  _Is this something I can do now?_  he wonders, even as she presses back against him and bites gently on his lower lip. 

“What do we do now?” he whispers when they break apart, scared out of his mind and yet somehow exhilarated and giddy.

She pauses and stares at him and he waits, breathless, knowing somehow that everything in his universe hinges on her answer.

“Now…” she starts, and he fights the urge to hurry her along. He, more than anyone, knows the value in finding the right words. “Now, you stay here while I make us tea and nick some pastries from the kitchen. And then we’ll eat breakfast in bed and watch some telly and talk. We’ll both take a sick day and the team will be suspicious, but who cares? And  _then_  we can brainstorm things to do on our day off.”

“Brainstorm,” he repeats, struck dumb by the gleam in her eye and the smirk he wants to kiss right off her face. 

Jemma kisses him first. She throws the blanket away from their bodies and the sunlight streams in, lighting up the rest of his life.


End file.
